Lost and Found
by gypsyscarfwoman
Summary: In which a tattooed coffee barista hires a stubbly private investigator to find her long-lost brother. Wildly AU.
1. Chapter 1

_Because didn't this fandom need a coffee shop AU colliding with a gumshoe AU? No? Ooops._

 _And also because conversations with Snapdragon83 and Dylan Cruca frequently devolve into the writerly equivalent of "Hold my beer and watch this." I accept full blame for my questionable judgment, lol.  
_

 _Will probably be longer than I planned and will likely take me months to finish. I apologize in advance._

* * *

The only thing that made Monday bearable was coffee.

Well, coffee and a chance to flirt with the gorgeous barista at his local coffee shop.

As he neared the shop, though, he saw that the door to "The Pour House" was propped open. Which might have made sense on a crisp, spring morning, but today was a hot, still, humid summer day that was already miserable at barely eight in the morning.

The former cop that still lurked inside Kurt Weller didn't like it when things seemed off.

He resisted the urge to quicken his step and instead did a slow, thorough visual sweep of the street. Nothing out of the ordinary. He only had to put one foot in the door before the wave of stifling heat—worse inside the building than out—made it clear what the problem was.

Behind the counter, Jane was fanning herself with a paper menu. The barista was tall and slender, with the most amazing green eyes he'd ever seen. And he almost stopped in his tracks when he realized she was wearing a tank top. He'd never seen her in anything other than long sleeves before. He'd seen the tattoo on her neck and the ones on the backs of her hands before, but he realized now they traveled all the way up her arms and, judging by the ink visible above the low neckline of her tank top, across her chest as well.

He wasn't usually drawn to tattoos, but on Jane, they were sexy as hell.

There was no one in line, so he made his way to the counter. He'd never have admitted it, but he tried to time his visits with the lulls in the morning rush, when he might be able to chat with her for a few minutes. He'd also tried all manner of fancy coffee drink combinations—on her recommendations—instead of his basic black coffee.

"Good morning," she said with a weary smile when he reached the counter. "Yes, the A/C is out. No, we don't know when they'll be here to fix it. And yes, I can make whatever you want iced instead of hot."

He couldn't help but grin.

She'd wrapped a headband of some sort around her head, holding her hair away from her face, but the tendrils that had escaped were forming damp curls that clung to her temples. He had the urge to reach up to brush away the drops of sweat that were beading up along her hairline.

"Rough morning?" he asked instead.

She rolled her eyes. "Tons of fun. What can I get you?"

"Large black," he said. "Iced."

"Bless you." She moved to the espresso machine. "You want an extra shot, so it's not too watered down?"

"Please." He leaned against the counter and watched her work.

There was an economical grace to her movements. She moved quickly, but the motion was always fluid, never abrupt or awkward.

He was pretty sure that "efficiency" wasn't supposed to be a turn-on, either.

She filled a plastic cup with ice and set it on the counter while the espresso brewed.

"Nice ink," he said.

He'd meant it as a compliment and was surprised when her shoulders stiffened. She relaxed them almost immediately. "Thanks."

But the cop in his head knew her smile was forced.

"What do they mean?" He kept his voice even, conversational.

She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, brushing away the sweat droplets that glistened on her skin. "I have no idea."

That stopped him. Tattoos were a pretty personal thing, and most people picked something that held some sort of meaning for them.

"You just liked the way they looked?"

"Someone did." She poured the espresso into the cup.

Someone else had decided she needed so many tattoos? Kurt wasn't sure if it was his inner cop or just what his sister would call his "overprotective male behavior" that was more concerned.

"Here's your coffee." She set the cup on the counter in front of him, but before she could turn away, he held out a business card.

"I'm a private investigator. If you want some help figuring out what they mean."

Green eyes regarded him warily, but she took the card.

"Have a good day, Jane. Good luck with the air conditioning."

###

The door was closed to the café the next morning, and the familiar arctic blast hit him when he made his way inside. There were two people in line at the counter. A woman followed Kurt through the door, and he waved her to go ahead of him.

When he finally reached the counter, Jane flashed her usual smile. "How are you?"

"Good. It's cooler in here today."

"Thank God. They didn't get here until three, but whatever it was didn't take them long to fix." She turned to the espresso machine. "Large black coffee?"

He regarded her for a second. "I never order black coffee."

She shrugged. "That's what you drink, isn't it?"

He didn't like to be easy to read, but he said only, "Maybe you should be the private investigator."

A small smile flickered briefly across her lips as she took his money and counted out his change.

"You're good at what you do, aren't you?" she asked, moving to fill his cup.

Kurt shrugged. He'd been a damned good cop. He supposed he was good private investigator. Or at least he paid his bills on time.

She wiped her palms on the black apron she wore, in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. "I'd like to hire you."

He almost dropped the cup she handed him.

" _Not_ for the tattoos. I'm looking for someone."

He opened his mouth to reply, but she kept going. "I know what you charge. I can afford it."

He closed his mouth before he could say something really stupid like he didn't care if she could pay him or not.

He should ask her for more information before he agreed to take her case. But really, it didn't matter what she said. It probably wasn't trying to photograph an unfaithful husband, and more importantly, it was an excuse to spend time with Jane.

"What time are you done work?"

###

The sign outside the door read, "Kurt Weller, Private Investigator." Jane had researched him last night, his card propped on her nightstand.

He'd been a cop. She knew she should stay away from the cops, but from what little she'd been able to find about his police career, he seemed to have left the force under some sort of shadow.

She'd decided that could work in her favor. The last thing she wanted to do was bring any attention Shepherd's way from the police.

She didn't want to bring any attention her own way, either from Shepherd or the police. But she'd gone as far as she could go on her own. There was no way she could find Roman by herself. She needed help from someone who had greater resources than she did, someone who could be discreet in his inquiries without leading straight back to her.

Someone she could trust.

She didn't trust easily. Life had taught her that not many people could be depended upon when the chips were down. But life had also taught her to follow her instincts, and her instincts told her to trust Kurt Weller.

She sucked in a breath and opened the door to the office.

"Can I help you?"

Whatever she'd expected, it hadn't been a bright and modern office. Or the dark-haired receptionist who regarded Jane with a suspicious look that only deepened as her gaze rested on the tattoo visible on Jane's neck.

Jane straightened her spine. She'd had plenty of practice being looked down on for the tattoos. She wasn't about to take any grief from this woman. "Jane Kruger," she said coolly. "I have an appointment."

The receptionist didn't look impressed. One perfectly-groomed eyebrow rose and hovered for a moment before she pushed a button on her phone. "Ms. Kruger is here."

A moment later, the door behind her opened, and Kurt Weller emerged from his inner sanctum.

He was wearing the same chambray button-down shirt he'd had on when she'd seen him that morning, but he seemed somehow larger than he had in the café. More solid.

And just as good-looking. But she pushed that thought away, blaming it on her nun-like lifestyle of late.

"Jane." He stepped around his assistant's desk. "Did you meet Tasha? This is Tasha Zapata, my assistant."

The brunette nodded at Jane, her assessing look not letting up one iota. Knowing how much the agency charged, Jane was pretty sure that the women who came through the door were more likely to be wearing pearls and heels than tattoos and cargo pants. She returned Zapata's look with one of her own, refusing to be intimidated.

"Come on in." Kurt stepped aside to follow Jane through the door to his office, his hand brushing lightly against the small of her back as he followed her through.

Jane tried to ignore the shivers the casual touch ignited. That wasn't why she was here. And she'd learned her lesson about allowing someone to get too close. She knew better now. Right?

His office was also bright. And modern, not in the stark-and-metal sense, but in the simple lines and lack of fussy adornments. There was a framed geometric print hanging on the wall beside the door that she thought might have been by Klee. Direct and straightforward, rather like the man waving her into a seat in front of his desk.

She sat down and was mildly surprised when he took the chair beside hers, rather than across the desk. "So who are you looking for, Jane?"

"My brother." She reached into the small knapsack she carried in lieu of a purse and extracted her sketchbook. She pulled two photographs from their shelter within the pages and handed them to Kurt.

"We were orphaned when we were very young. He's the only family I have. He disappeared ten years ago." She nodded at the first photograph, which showed a young man, handsome in spite of the scar that split his eyebrow and continued down his cheek.

"Ten years?" Kurt asked. "That's a long time."

Her chin shot up. "He's not dead. That picture was taken about a year and a half ago." She pointed to the second picture, a grainy photo that had come from a security camera. The face in the photo had the same scar as the younger man, but sported longer hair and a thick beard.

"This might be more helpful." She carefully extracted a page that she had torn from her sketchbook that morning and handed it over. She'd spent hours looking at the photo, trying to translate the familiar eyes and expression into this newer, older face.

His eyebrows shot up. "You drew this?"

She nodded. "That's what he looks like now."

He didn't take his eyes off the sketch. "You'd make a hell of a police sketch artist, if you felt like giving up the coffee business," he murmured absently. Before she could respond to that suggestion, he continued, "When did you lose him?"

She drew a deep breath. She'd spent last night working out in her head how much she could tell him. Enough to find Roman. Enough not to waste the fee she was paying Weller. But not enough to reveal the things that could only do harm.

"When I was seven, Roman five, we were adopted by a woman named Ellen Briggs. She wasn't particularly maternal." To put it mildly. "We tried to run away, but because we were minors, they sent us right back to her. So when I turned eighteen, I ran away for good. Got a job, found a place to live. I went back to find Roman, to tell him I was going to try to get custody of him myself… but they were gone." She shook her head. "I looked and looked, but there was no trace of them."

Weller frowned. "So no… forwarding address? School records? Drivers' licenses?"

Jane shook her head. "We moved around a lot. Ellen was good at… disappearing. She homeschooled us, so there were never any records. Sometimes we changed names. I was born Alice Jane Kruger. When I was ten, Ellen changed my name to Remi. Roman was born Ian Kruger. I think he still goes by Roman, but I don't know what last name he's using. It changed a lot when we were kids."

"So why all the moves? What was Ellen running from?"

This was the tricky part. "I don't know exactly. Sometimes she'd just come home and announce we were leaving."

"Was she involved in anything illegal?"

Jane forced herself to shrug. "I don't know." This wasn't about Shepherd. The last person she wanted to find was Shepherd.

Fortunately, Weller didn't push. "I'll need all the addresses and names you remember."

She nodded and pulled a folded sheet of paper out of her book and handed it over to him. "That's all of them. The one at the bottom was where we were living when I left."

"So where was this one taken?" He held up the second photograph.

"About eighteen months ago, I stumbled across someone who remembered us. He said he'd seen Roman working at an office park. I started watching for him, and I saw him one day, but he disappeared before I could talk to him. That's off the security feed there." She nodded at the photo.

"He didn't come back?" prompted Weller, when she didn't continue.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I was in a car accident that night. By the time I was able to go back, he was gone, and no one there knew who he was." Even the security guard who'd been willing to help her was gone.

"Who was driving?"

"What?" She frowned at him in puzzlement.

"The accident. Who was driving?"

There was something in Weller's steady, almost unblinking gaze that made her want to fidget, but she forced herself to stay still.

"My boyfriend." Maybe. She'd probably never know.

"Were you hurt?"

She nodded. "Head trauma. I was in a coma for about a month."

He continued firing questions at her. "Broken bones? Other injuries?"

"No. I was lucky."

His chin moved up and down in a slow, thoughtful nod. "I'll need to talk to your boyfriend."

"Oh. Ah…" She swallowed. How was Oscar relevant to finding Roman? "We broke up. I don't know where he is now."

"How long after the accident?"

 _While I was unconscious, actually._ But all she said was, "Not long."

"It's not much to go on," he said. His perceptive blue eyes studied her, and she had the unsettling feeling that he was seeing far beneath her skin, to all the things that she had to hide. "I can't guarantee anything," he said gently.

"I know. I just…" She looked down at the sketchbook in her lap. More pages than not were covered in images, memories, of her brother. "I've been looking for so long. And he's all I have."

He looked at the pictures and the pages she'd given him and then back up at her. "So… What do your tattoos have to do with your brother's disappearance?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to tell me that you were excited about this new story! This fandom is the best & I love you guys._ 💜💜💜

* * *

"What do your tattoos have to do with your brother's disappearance?"

Kurt leaned back in his chair and regarded his new client steadily.

The question hung in the air between them, but Jane didn't so much as blink. Her brow wrinkled in an artful frown. "They don't have anything to do with it." She gave a puzzled shrug, opening her green eyes in wide innocence.

It was a perfect performance, but Weller was certain she was lying.

"So you _do_ know what they mean?"

She gave a small embarrassed smile. "I lost a bet." She gave another tiny shrug. "Perils of drink, children."

The tattoos he'd seen on her arms must have taken days to do. Far longer than any drunkenly-chosen tattoo would take. But he hadn't been a cop for so many years without learning to trust his instincts. And right now his instincts told him that if he pushed her, she'd bolt.

And the last thing he wanted was for that to happen.

"The business park where you saw Roman… What was he doing?"

The tense set of her shoulders eased ever so slightly as she realized he wasn't asking her anything else about her tattoos. "I don't know. He was leaving an office, I'm not even sure which one. I followed him down a stairwell, but when I got down to the bottom, he was gone."

"Can you give me the address?"

She nodded. "It's on that list."

"Any idea what he might be doing now for a career?"

She looked helplessly at him and shook her head. "It's been so long… I don't know."

He hated the look of distress in her wide green eyes. That she loved her brother was obvious, and Kurt forced himself to ignore his urge to lean forward and hold her hand and promise her he'd find him for her.

Making promises in his line of work was a risky proposition.

"What kinds of things did he like to do? Any hobbies? Favorite subject in school?"

"He liked to draw, like me. And read. And play card games. He was good at card tricks." She made a small, uncertain gesture with her hands. "We… we didn't have a lot of free time."

Jesus. What kind of childhood had she had? But he restrained himself from visibly reacting. He was certain Jane wouldn't respond well to pity.

Instead, he collected himself and changed tacks. "Is there anything else you can think of that might be helpful?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "That's all."

Except for the things that she clearly wasn't ready to share with him. This would have to be enough to get started. And hopefully it wouldn't take too long for her to decide he could be trusted with the rest.

She was looking at him hopefully, her shoulders relaxed, but the knuckles gripping the sketchbook in her lap were white. "Am I wasting my time? And my money?" she asked bluntly.

Her directness surprised him not at all. He might not know her well—yet—but he already knew she wasn't one to hide from the truth or pussyfoot around it.

"I can't promise that I will find him, but we have something to start with. I'll keep going until we run out of leads." It was the most he could promise her.

She nodded, her hands relaxing. "Thank you, Kurt."

It was the first time she'd said his name, and the single syllable in her husky, slightly raspy voice might have been the sexiest sound he'd ever heard. Which was both totally inconvenient and highly inappropriate. She was a client now, and he was just going to have to learn to ignore his attraction to her.

"I'll let you know what I find out."

###

Jane had been watching the door to the coffee shop all morning. She knew it was too soon for Weller to have found anything. Hell, he'd probably gone home for the day right after she'd left his office. With the limited information she'd given him, it would probably take him weeks to dig up anything useful.

If he could at all.

But she couldn't allow herself to think that way. He could find Roman. He _had_ to. She'd talked to everyone she could, exhausted every avenue she could think of.

She felt like Princess Leia. _Help me, Obi Weller, you're my only hope._

Weller was her last-ditch effort. If this failed, she'd be out both her family and her life's savings. But she'd started from nothing before, and if need be, she could do it again.

But she wasn't giving up on Weller yet.

As if she'd summoned him, the door to the café opened, and Kurt strode in.

And for reasons that Jane didn't care to examine too closely, she felt instantly comforted.

"Good morning," she greeted him with a smile as he reached the counter.

"Morning, Jane." His smile reached all the way up to his eyes when he looked at her, and her own smile widened in response.

"Black?"

"Yes, please."

He reached for his wallet, but she waved a hand at him. "It's on the house."

He frowned a tiny bit. "You don't have to do that. I don't want to get you in trouble."

She laughed. "My boss is very understanding. If you find her brother, I think you can count on free coffee for life." She moved down the counter to grab a cup.

He tilted his head. "You're the owner?"

"Half-owner," she clarified. "But I handle the day-to-day running of things." She handed the coffee to him.

"Thanks." He looked over at the register, which was mercifully free of a line at the moment. "Do you have a minute?"

She knew he hadn't had time to find anything real yet, but her heartbeat sped up all the same. "Yes. Of course." She turned to call out to her assistant behind the bakery case. "Brianna, can you man the register for a minute?"

The younger woman nodded, dark ponytail bouncing.

Jane came around the counter and gestured to a table in the corner, where they could speak in relative privacy.

Kurt looked serious as he took the seat she'd indicated, and she steeled herself for bad news.

"Tasha ran the images you gave us through some of her facial recognition software. She couldn't find anyone with a driver's license matching Roman's physical description." He paused. "But she did find someone matching his description in an arrest report in Philadelphia, eight years ago."

Beneath the cover of the table, Jane rubbed her suddenly clammy palms over her apron. "Arrested? For what?"

"Assault. A witness picked him out of a lineup. But the charges were eventually dropped, so he was released." He pulled out his phone and tapped a few times before turning it so she could see the screen.

The face in the mug shot was definitely Roman. She reached out a hand to touch his face before she realized what she was doing. She curled her fingers and dropped her fist back into her lap. "That's him."

He nodded. "He gave the name Ian Rigg. The address he gave is a deserted row home. He had no driver's license or any other identifying information on him."

She couldn't suppress a sigh. "So a dead end."

"Well, we know there's a good possibility that he moved away from New York after you left, which is why you couldn't find him. But it means he might not be in New York anymore."

"He was here eighteen months ago," she insisted stubbornly, even though she knew that didn't mean anything.

Instead of arguing with her, as she'd expected, Kurt just nodded.

"Jane." He hesitated. "Do you think Roman could be involved in whatever was making Ellen run? If she's involved in something illegal…"

Jane swallowed. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "He was as eager to get away from her as I was. Eight years ago he would have just turned eighteen, so maybe he went to Philadelphia to get away?" She couldn't imagine him deciding to stay with Shepherd.

Kurt nodded. "I'll keep looking."

"Thank you."

He shook his head. "Don't thank me until I have something real to share." He raised his cup. "But thank _you_ for the coffee."

###

Kurt stood in the middle of the office park, leaning against the railing on the upper level. Offices were distributed on two levels, surrounding an open courtyard in the center with a few trees and some bare dirt that might have once held grass.

There were three offices in the section where Jane had seen Roman, directly across the courtyard from where he stood. The one on the left was a beauty supply store. A large sign on the door warned shoppers that they would have to provide a valid beautician's license in order to shop there. The one on the far right was a rental property management firm. Both had been located in their respective locations for years. The business in the middle, an advertising firm, was new. Macbook-clutching millennials made their way in and out.

Kurt turned his back on them to consider the office behind him. "Om-peccable Yoga" proclaimed the purple script on the window. A young woman with blond hair pulled up in a messy knot sat at a desk just inside the window, her chin propped on her hand as she watched people go by.

The door gave a melodic chime when he pushed it open, and the girl roused from her daydreams. "Hello! Welcome to Om-peccable Yoga." She held the "Ommm" sound out for several seconds.

"Hi." Kurt gave her his most charming grin. "How are you? I don't suppose you can help me. The business I'm looking for doesn't seem to be there anymore. They were across the way from you." He pointed at the office in question.

"Oh! The pain management clinic? Yeah, they moved out about a year ago, maybe a little more. Is chronic pain a problem for you?" She frowned sympathetically.

"Yeah," lied Kurt. "My back. A friend of mine recommended them. Do you have any idea where they might have moved to?"

The girl shook her head. "Sorry. They just cleared out one day. Must have moved to a new location. The rent keeps going up here."

"Darn. My friend said I should see this guy," he pulled the security camera picture of Roman out of his pocket. "But I didn't write down his name. I thought I'd remember," he said with a rueful smile. "And my back's gotten worse lately, but now my buddy's overseas."

The girl looked at the picture in Kurt's hand. "Oh yeah. I remember him." Her smile took on a slightly dreamy look. "But he didn't work there. He just came to deliver stuff to them."

Kurt put on his most puzzled face. "He didn't work there? My buddy said he was the one who helped him with his knee pain."

But she shook her head. "No, he only came a couple of times a week to make deliveries." Pulling her attention away from the picture, she looked back up at Kurt. "Have you tried yoga for your back pain? Your posture could be contributing to your problems, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Ah, no, I haven't. I don't suppose you remember his name? Maybe I could google him."

"I don't, sorry." She shook her head. "You have a desk job, don't you?" Without waiting for a response, the girl barreled on. "I can tell. People have no idea how much damage you can do to your back just from sitting all day long…"

Ten minutes later, armed with several pamphlets and having promised to consider signing up for a free trial class, Kurt made his way down the stairwell where Jane had followed Roman. It made two turns, going around the elevator shaft and cutting off the line of sight to the bottom. Two walkways branched off to the parking lots on either side. It would have been relatively easy to disappear into a waiting vehicle if there was a crowd or if the person following you was far enough behind.

He followed the walkway to the left, where he'd left his car.

His phone rang as he was climbing in. "Tasha. What do you have?"

"I haven't been able to find any prisons with a prisoner matching Roman's description. No unidentified bodies either."

Kurt exhaled. He hadn't wanted to have to tell Jane that her brother was in jail. Or dead. "Any info on the pain clinic?"

"No," she admitted, frustration clear in her voice. "Whoever set that one up was good. Shell companies owned by shell companies. All of the bios for the clinic are fake. None of them match Roman's description."

"I'm pretty sure he didn't work there," Kurt told her. "Looks like he was making deliveries."

"Medical supplies? Drugs?" she immediately suggested.

"Possibly." Kurt stared out the windshield. "If they were a front, moving pain killers, they might have set up shop somewhere else."

"So I need to look for pain management clinics opening up after this one terminated their lease. And look for links to any of these shell companies."

"Exactly."

"That's why you pay me the big bucks, right?" She hung up before he could reply.

Kurt drummed his hands on the steering wheel. It was looking more and more like Roman was tangled up in whatever—likely illegal—business Ellen Briggs was conducting. The business Jane didn't want him to know about.

It wasn't the first time a client hadn't been truthful with him. If it had been anyone else, Kurt would have just confronted them, told them he couldn't do his job with one hand tied behind his back, and thrown the ball back in their court. The outcome was pretty evenly split between the client opening up and filling in the gaps, or firing him. At which point he sent them an invoice for whatever time he'd spent on the case, chalked it up to experience, and moved on to the next case.

But with Jane… He wanted to find her brother. He wanted to make the shadows in her green eyes go away.

And he wanted to spend more time with her.

 _She could be playing you_ , pointed out a reasonable voice in his head. And he knew that he was a fool if he didn't at least consider that possibility, even if his gut couldn't be persuaded that was true.

For now, he was just going to go with the hope that he could convince Jane to trust him.


	3. Chapter 3

Jane served up coffee and tried hard to pretend that she wasn't waiting for Weller to make his morning appearance. Only because he might have found out something new, she told herself. Never mind that she'd been enjoying his morning visits long before she hired him to find Roman. The guy was good-looking and wasn't wearing a ring. There was no harm in looking, right?

And with her track record… not to mention all the tattoos… looking was about all she was good for these days anyway.

On that slightly depressing note, she went back to fixing the vanilla soy latte her customer was waiting for.

She'd just finished filling a large order when she looked up to find Weller in front of the register.

"Hi." She couldn't subdue the grin that spread over her face when she saw him. "How are you?"

"Enjoying this lovely weather. You?"

She grimaced at him in response. It was 99°F in the shade and about 90% humidity outside today. She sent up a small prayer that the air-conditioner didn't decide to act up again.

She moved to fill his cup, and he followed her along the counter.

"I'm trying to be good and not demand updates," she admitted to him as she handed him the cup. "I know you just came in for coffee."

"I promise, Jane, I will call you the second I have something concrete." His blue eyes regarded her solemnly.

Jane inhaled and nodded. She knew she could trust him. That was why she had hired him. "Thanks," she whispered.

Kurt glanced back at the counter, which was mercifully free of customers for a moment. "There is one thing," he said, quietly enough not be overheard by the patrons seated behind him. "I think we need to consider that Roman might be in contact with Ellen. It would be helpful if you had a picture of her."

"No!" Her response was instantaneous and emphatic, and a couple of heads turned in her direction. She forced herself to lower her voice before continuing. "I don't want to find her. And I don't want her to know that I'm looking for Roman." No matter how good Kurt was at what he did, Shepherd was better. If he started watching Shepherd, she would know, and it wouldn't take her any time at all to trace Kurt back to Jane… and make sure that neither of them troubled her again.

Kurt leaned over the counter that separated them. "We don't have to do anything that might draw her attention, but if I don't know what she looks like, I can't avoid her, either."

Jane hesitated. He had a good point. She gave a stiff nod. "I don't have any pictures of her. But I could draw her for you."

"Thank you." He leaned back, but she reached out and grabbed his arm before he could turn away.

"Shepherd is dangerous. We need to stay _far_ away from her."

"Shepherd?" He frowned at her.

"I meant Ellen," she said quickly. "She takes her privacy very seriously. She's dangerous," she repeated, trying to stress the seriousness of her warning to him.

His frown grew deeper. "Jane, I am not going to do anything that puts you in danger. You know that, don't you?"

"It's not me. I—I don't want anything to happen to you."

"I can take care of myself."

Not against Shepherd, he couldn't. But she couldn't tell him that without telling him a whole lot more about Shepherd than she wanted. "Just—be careful. Please. Promise me."

His face softened. "I'll be careful. I promise."

She nodded, not comforted in the least.

"You've got customers," he said, nodding toward the register where Brianna was simultaneously serving up chocolate scones and taking coffee orders.

"I'll get you that sketch," she said, turning back to her job. And hoped that she was doing the right thing.

###

"So, Boss… the Kruger case?"

Kurt looked up to find Tasha standing in the doorway to his office.

"Did you find something?" he asked.

"It's what I didn't find," she told him.

"And that is…."

Tasha propped one shoulder against the door frame and crossed her arms. "There is no record of an Alice, Jane, or Ian Kruger being adopted by anyone twenty-one years ago. I expanded the search criteria by four years in either direction _and_ looked out of state. Nor is there a record of an Ellen Briggs adopting two children."

Kurt leaned back in his chair and thought about that for a minute. "Foster records?" Jane had been young, likely not old enough to fully understand the legality of her situation.

"Nothing," repeated Tasha.

"What about for a Roman and Remi?"

"Nada." She eyed him for a minute. "She might not have been telling the truth."

Kurt swallowed the denial that instantly sprang to his lips.

"You're the one who always tells me that clients lie all the time," Tasha said.

They did. And she was right, he did say that. A lot. But in this case, he didn't think Jane was lying to him. Omitting some of the truth, yes. But outright lying?

 _She could be playing you,_ reminded the voice in his head. Or there could be another explanation.

Tasha was still waiting patiently in the doorway. "Got any other angles you want me to try?"

He scrubbed a hand over his face. It was four o'clock on a Friday afternoon. "No, get out of here. Jane's supposed to be getting me a picture of Ellen Briggs. We'll try facial recognition matches with that."

"Right-o." She pushed herself upright. "You got any big plans this weekend?"

"Me? No."

She shook her head. "It's not good for you to work all the time. Get out, do something fun."

He just rolled his eyes. He was a lot better at investigating than he was at _fun_. He worked most weekends, and Tasha gave him crap every Friday about it. On Monday, she'd tell him what she'd done with her friends over the weekend. It was a very reliable routine; why mess with it?

"Fun is your job. Get on with it. See you Monday."

"You're a lost cause, Weller," she called over her shoulder as she sashayed out of his office.

He'd accepted that years ago.

He was finishing up case notes for another client when his cell phone rang. He picked the phone up absently, typing with his other hand. "This is Weller."

"Hi, Kurt. It's Jane."

All his senses went on alert at the sound of her voice.

"Jane. What's up?"

"I have that sketch for you. Of Ellen," she said, hesitance obvious in her voice. "I could come by and drop it off, if you're still in the office," she said with more determination.

"I'm getting ready to leave now," he said, closing his laptop with a thunk on the half-finished report. "I can stop by the café."

"That'd be great. Thanks."

And so twenty minutes later, he found himself entering the coffee shop for the second time that day.

A few tables were still occupied, but it was much quieter than it was in the morning. Jane was behind the counter, talking with a tall, dark-skinned man. When she saw Weller enter, she hefted her familiar knapsack over her shoulder and came around the counter, a rolled-up page from her sketchbook in her hand.

"Hi, thanks for coming," she said.

"It's on my way home," he told her. Even if hadn't been, he would have come.

She nodded and thrust the paper at him. "Here. It's the best I could do. I haven't seen her in ten years."

He unrolled the page. An attractive woman with tightly-curled hair and cold, unfriendly eyes looked back at him. Something about her sent a chill down his spine.

"Please," Jane said, drawing his attention back to her. "We need to stay far away from her."

"If Roman is with her," he told her, "and we find him, there's no guarantee he won't tell her."

"He's not with her." But the wary look in her eyes didn't go away.

He put the picture carefully in his briefcase.

"Come on," she said when he was done, "I'll walk out with you."

"Are you done for the day?"

She gave a small huff of laughter. "I've been here since five. I've _been_ done. But I wanted to give that to you today."

He'd noticed the smudges of fatigue under her eyes and felt a pang of guilt for contributing to them.

"Five?" He grimaced. He was generally an early riser, but she probably got up at what, four, then?

"Perils of owning a coffee shop." She gestured for him to precede her out the door. "Night, Stuart!" she called over her shoulder as they left.

"Are you headed home," he asked once they were outside on the sidewalk, "or do you have big plans for this evening?"

She rolled her eyes. "Really big. Pizza on my sofa. I know, so glamorous."

He chuckled. "Sounds like my ideal Friday. There's a good Italian place a couple of blocks from here. Want to split a pizza?" The words were out before he could really think about them—or how unwise getting pizza with his client might be. Tasha would give him an earful if she knew, he was sure.

Jane hesitated, green eyes wide. "Um. You don't have to—"

He shrugged. "I'll put it on your tab, if it will make you feel better." He kept his voice neutral, casual, not betraying how much he wanted her to say yes.

She smiled then, shyly. "Well, in that case... Lead on."

Fifteen minutes later, they were comfortably ensconced in a cozy table near the back, debating microbrews—Jane liked darker beers more than the hoppy IPAs he favored—and pizza toppings—they both liked artichokes and red pepper but declined olives and, after some debate, settled on sausage instead of pepperoni.

"So, how'd you end up in the coffee business?" he asked, leaning back in his seat after their waitress had left with their order.

"Somebody's gotta provide the elixir of life, right?" She grinned, a sudden flash of teeth and sparkling green eyes. "There aren't that many jobs available for eighteen-year-olds without a high school diploma," she said more seriously. "I was too young to work at restaurants that sold alcohol. Coffee shops paid decent money plus tips if you were willing to start work at five a.m."

"And you still don't mind starting at five a.m.?"

She shrugged. "I don't sleep much anyway. And I like the work. Most of the customers who come through are really nice. Even the surly private investigators," she added, raising her glass at him.

He choked on his beer. "Surly?!" He'd thought he was being _charming_.

Her eyes twinkled at him over the rim of her glass. "Okay, _serious_ then."

"Hmmph." He gave her a mock frown, enjoying this more playful side of her. "You sound like Tasha. She says I always look grumpy."

"See? Too serious. You need to lighten up."

"This is my light side!" he insisted. This was the most lighthearted he'd felt in a long time, if he were being honest.

She rolled her eyes.

"So, you were telling me about coffee. How'd you end up at the Pour House?"

"Investigating me now?" she asked, taking another sip of her beer.

"Just curious."

He wasn't sure if she would tell him anything else. She obviously wasn't someone who liked to talk about herself. But he waited patiently, and after a moment she said, "I was an assistant manager at another place, and one day one of my regulars came in and told me that he'd just bought a company that owned, among other businesses, a coffee shop. But the manager had quit and the place was disorganized. He offered me a partnership on the spot if I would come in and fix things for him. It was an offer I couldn't refuse."

"Sounds like a tall order."

She shrugged. "I like challenges. But it wasn't nearly as bad as he made it sound. They were short-handed, and the previous manager hadn't been paying the bills. I hired a few more people, made sure our suppliers got paid on time, found some better quality coffee beans and improved the variety we carried."

He doubted it was as easy as she made it sound. "What's your partner like?"

"Oh, he's pretty eccentric," she said with a chuckle, "and likes to drop in unannounced, but we get along fine. I'm working on him to buy a roaster so we can roast our own beans in-house."

"What are his objections?" Kurt asked curiously.

"Well, they aren't cheap. And we'd have to move one of the counters to make room for it. But it will allow us to buy raw beans direct from the growers, so we can offer our own house blends. I'd like to do a 'coffee of the month' club that our customers can subscribe to, maybe sell online as well. We could have tasting events so people can sample the different beans—" She stopped abruptly. "Sorry, I get a little carried away."

"Sounds like you've done very well then," he said lightly, reaching for his beer.

She stiffened. "I got my G.E.D., and I've got enough credits for an Associate's Degree in business."

He stopped, his beer frozen halfway to his mouth. He set it back down on the table. "Jane, I didn't mean that you hadn't worked hard to get where you are." He reached across the table to touch her arm. "I'm a small business owner. I know how tough it is."

Her spine relaxed a bit. "Sorry," she muttered. "I'm kind of prickly about it. Some of the people I used to work with said some… not-so-nice things when I left. Anyway..." She took a sip of her beer. "Your turn. How did you become a P.I.?"

He tried to make his smile less of a grimace. "I was a cop. Homicide detective. Eleven years on the force. Always figured I'd die a cop, you know?"

She looked at him, eyes wide above the rim of her pint glass, but she didn't interrupt.

He didn't like to talk about the end of his police career, but for reasons that he didn't entirely understand, he wanted to tell Jane. "There were a couple of murders. One was someone close to a friend of mine. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. We found the woman who shot him, but I knew his death was connected to the others, and we couldn't prove anything. I kept digging, but the case was cold, and we were told to drop it. But I just… I couldn't let it go. I owed those families, you know? And my friend. My boss told me to give it a rest, and… we went a few rounds about it. Finally, he'd had enough, and I got 'reassigned.' Turned in my resignation a few days later, found an office, and hung out a shingle." He shrugged. He'd never be rich, but he was doing all right.

Jane was watching him, barely blinking. "Why would the police department stop investigating a case? I mean, don't they have an obligation to solve _all_ murders?" She sounded irate at the idea.

"They do, but it's a question of manpower. If you've been working a case for weeks with no breaks, and other cases start piling up, then sometimes they decide the resources are needed more elsewhere."

"That's not what those families need to hear. They need to know that someone is still looking for them."

He nodded. "That's why I became a cop." He lifted his glass and took a deep drink from his beer.

Jane sat silently, her green eyes soft and compassionate, and he found himself telling her the rest of the story, that only a few people closest to him knew. "When I was ten, I was babysitting the little girl next door. She disappeared. They never found her. The cops, they searched around the clock for days. Weeks. But eventually… they stopped looking. But her mom… She never gave up looking."

"And neither did you," Jane said softly.

"Neither did I. But the thing is… I'm pretty sure she's dead. And I'm pretty sure it was my father who killed her."

He shut his mouth abruptly. He hadn't meant to tell her that. Hell, she was a client, who was trusting him to find her brother _alive_.

But Jane didn't look horrified. She reached across the table to where his hand rested beside his glass. She wrapped her fingers around his and squeezed. "Even if he did," she said, in a tone of voice that defied any argument, "it wasn't your fault. You were a kid, and," her voice faltered for a moment, "when you're a kid, you have no control over the things that happen around you."

He swallowed. He didn't need comforting. But he couldn't stop his fingers from curling around hers and holding on tight.

He was saved from having to respond by the arrival of the waitress with their pizza.

For a few moments, they ate in companionable silence. Jane devoured her first slice as fast as he did and immediately slid a second slice onto each of their plates. She didn't pick at her food or make jokes about the calories and having to eat salads for the next three days. The only time she hesitated was when the waitress came by to ask if they wanted another round of beer. Kurt nodded to the waitress, and after a moment, Jane signaled her assent too.

After his second slice of pizza, Kurt cleared his throat. "Sorry about that. I guess neither of us had particularly good childhoods."

But Jane didn't seem upset. She swallowed a bite of pizza and set the crust down on her place. "My parents went out to dinner," she said quietly, wiping her hands carefully on her napkin. "We were home with a neighbor. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, too, just like your friend's friend. There was gunfire. Gang violence, they said. My mom was killed right away. My dad died in the hospital the next day. We didn't have any other family, so we ended up in the foster care system. Ian was younger than me. He had a better chance of being adopted, but we wanted to stay together. And then Shepherd—Ellen—showed up and announced that she wanted both of us. It seemed too good to be true." Her mouth twisted. "And it was. Do you want another slice?"

He held out his plate. "Why do you call her Shepherd?" he asked.

A flash of panic showed in her eyes, but then she blinked and it was gone. "It's just a silly nickname," she said with a shrug in the same tone of voice she'd used when she'd lied to him about her tattoos. He was pretty sure no one else would have been able to tell that she was lying, but if there was one thing he was good at, it was sniffing out lies.

But he let that one go for a moment. Something else was niggling at him. "You said she changed your names? To Roman and Remi?"

Jane nodded.

"Why would she do that?"

"She said she wanted us to 'belong together.' Romulus and Remus were brothers who were found by a Shepherd in a myth."

And a sudden chill went down Kurt's spine. He remembered the story. And he remembered that, in the end, Romulus killed Remus.

What if finding Roman lead Jane to this mysterious Shepherd instead? If she was as dangerous as Jane believed, then by leading Jane there, Kurt would be the one responsible for putting Jane's life at risk.

Jane took a sip of her beer and smiled across the table at Kurt, a soft light in her deep green eyes.

His job description had changed, Kurt realized. No matter what Jane had hired him for, his primary duty was now keeping her safe from harm.


	4. Chapter 4

"Stop breathing down my neck, Weller." Tasha didn't look up from the computer screen in front of her.

"I'm not," he said with great dignity. "I was on my way to get another cup of coffee." He held up his mug as evidence as he made his way to the office's small kitchen.

Just because he'd been waiting for her to get in this morning so she could scan the photo Jane had drawn of Shepherd didn't mean he was _hovering_. Well, not much.

He filled his mug from the pot Tasha had brewed when she'd arrived. It wasn't as good as the cup he'd gotten that morning from Jane. Tomorrow he'd have to remember to buy a pound of ground coffee when he stopped in. It was better than whatever they'd been buying for the office.

He'd wanted to have more to tell Jane this morning, but hadn't made any progress over the weekend. He'd given up on Sunday and gone for a long run, stopping into The Pour House to buy a bottle of water, but Jane hadn't been in. He shouldn't have been surprised; she was probably better at relaxing than he was. Most people were.

He'd really enjoyed their dinner on Friday, in spite of the awkward personal revelations he'd dumped in her lap. Jane had a good sense of humor, and they'd found that they shared the same taste in movies and television shows, like Star Wars and The X-Files.

If he was telling the truth, dinner with Jane had been more fun than the last date he'd been on. But at the end of the meal, they'd bid each other a cordial good night, and she'd politely declined his offer to walk her home. Which was probably just as well. She was a client, and any relationship between them would no doubt be as awkward as it was inappropriate.

He took a sip of coffee, grimaced at the taste, and headed back to his office.

"Well, _that's_ interesting," Tasha was muttering at her screen as he walked by.

Kurt kept himself from looking in her direction, for fear of invoking her fiery temper. Tasha was very good at what she did, and she'd tell him what she'd found when she was ready. She was also downright lethal if you pissed her off, so he preferred to keep well on her good side.

He'd gotten exactly one step into his office when she called, "Where are you going?"

He stuck his head back out. "Did you need me?"

She waved her hand in a "come here" gesture without looking at him. "That's why we couldn't find her."

"Find who?"

She shot him a look that clearly questioned why he was the one in charge. "Ellen Briggs."

"And we couldn't find her because… she's very good at hiding her trail."

"She's very good at hiding her trail because she's _dead_ ," she corrected him.

He blinked. "She died?"

"Umm-hmm. Twenty-two years ago. Which is why there are no records for her after that."

Kurt tried to make sense out of that. "So… either she faked her death, or she really died and someone else took her identity, or…"

"Or Jane lied," said Tasha flatly.

"Or Jane lied." He didn't like it. Didn't think it was true. But he had to consider all the angles.

"What about the facial recognition?" He nodded toward the sketch at the corner of Tasha's desk.

"The sketch _Jane drew_?" Tasha asked. "It matches."

He understood what Tasha meant. If Jane had no problem sketching a ten-years-older Roman, aging up a photo of Ellen Briggs wouldn't present much of a challenge.

"What do we know about Ellen Briggs?"

Tasha's fingers moved steadily over the keyboard. "Died of complications from ovarian cancer. She was an officer in the US Army, received a medical discharge about six months before she died, following twelve years of active duty service. Attended college on an ROTC scholarship. No living family members."

The image that appeared on her computer screen showed a woman in an Army uniform. Her hair was pulled back, and she wore a uniform beret on her head, but the cold look in her eye was exactly the same as Jane had drawn.

"How come you're so sure Jane is lying?" he asked Tasha.

She didn't answer for a minute, which was odd. Tasha was never shy about voicing her opinion—especially when he was wrong. "There are holes in her story you could drive a Mack truck through," she said at last. "You're usually the most skeptical person I know. But you want to believe everything she tells you."

"There are definitely things she's not telling us," he acknowledged.

"Or the things she's told you might not be the truth."

"That's possible."

She turned her head then, to look over her shoulder at him. "I just don't want her to take advantage of you."

"Of me?" He blinked.

She gave him a pitying look. "How long have I worked for you?"

"Three years."

"Almost four. And I have never"—she pointed her finger at him for emphasis—" _never_ seen you look at a woman the way you look at her."

He shifted uncomfortably under her stern look. "She's a client. _Just_ a client."

Tasha shook her head.

"So you're worried about me?" he asked with a grin. "Aww, I didn't know you cared."

She rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer. "You're an idiot. You need a keeper."

"You say the sweetest things. How come I haven't fired you?"

"Because you couldn't hack your way out of a paper bag," she muttered, without looking away from the screen. "Ellen's degree was a Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry."

He instantly made the connection. "Chemistry might have something to do with the pain management clinic."

Tasha nodded. "I've found six in the five boroughs that opened after the one where Jane saw Roman closed down. None of them have any obvious financial connections to the first clinic, but I'll keep digging. I just sent you the list."

He nodded and turned to go back to his office. "Tasha?" he said over his shoulder as he got to the door.

"Yeah?" she looked up.

"Thanks."

She shook her head and turned back to her screen. "I got your back, boss."

###

The following morning found Kurt ensconced in a Starbucks, watching people coming and going from the strip mall across the street.

He'd narrowed down the list that Tasha had given him. Three of the clinics looked legitimate, located in busy medical parks with professional-looking websites and staff bios that checked out. Of the remaining three, this one looked the sketchiest, so he'd decided to start here.

He'd been there since 6:30 that morning. Which meant that he'd gotten coffee there instead of at The Pour House, ignoring the fact that it made him feel vaguely unfaithful. He took a sip of his black coffee and tried not to grimace. For as popular as the coffee chain was, he still liked the brew from Jane's place best.

 _You're avoiding her,_ said a voice in his head that sounded annoyingly like Tasha's. He ignored it and tapped at the laptop in front of him, pretending to work as he kept his gaze trained on the clinic across the street.

He hadn't confronted Jane about Shepherd's death yet. The logical part of his brain said that he needed to consider the possibility that the whole story Jane had told him had been a fabrication. None of the information she'd given him about her past had checked out. He was a person who dealt in facts, in black and white. And the facts were not stacking up in Jane's favor.

The less logical portion of his brain though… that part believed her. She'd looked scared when she talked about Shepherd. Bereft when she talked about her brother. And he couldn't shake the conviction that not telling him everything was her way of protecting him from whatever it was that had her so frightened.

So for the moment, he was just going to try to do what he'd been hired to do and find Roman. The cop in him said that if Jane _was_ lying, she'd trip up eventually. And if she wasn't, he'd find something that would back up her story. He just had to be patient.

Patience wasn't nearly as hard as inactivity, though, as the morning wore on. He'd never liked stakeouts when he'd been a cop. He liked them even less on uncomfortable wooden chairs.

When his phone buzzed, he grabbed it eagerly. "Whatcha got, Tasha?"

"I was looking into the records for the assault charges against Ian Rigg," she said. He could hear the distant sound of her fingers typing in the background.

"And?"

"The charges were dropped because the victim disappeared." She gave a gusty sigh. "They fished his body out of the Schuylkill River about two months later. It had been in there a while. Specific time of death couldn't be determined."

"Any arrests?"

"Nope. The case is still open. I'm sending you the case notes now."

Across the street, an anonymous white van pulled into a parking spot on the street a couple of doors down from the clinic. He curtailed his lecture on breaking into police databases. "Thanks, Tasha."

"Weller?" She didn't wait for him to respond. "Be careful. This guy could be dangerous."

The door opened, and a man with light brown hair and beard got out.

"Gotta go." Kurt hung up on Tasha and tapped the camera on the phone. Zooming in, he snapped pictures of the man—definitely Roman—and the license plate of the van.

Roman opened the rear door of the van, and leaned in. His jacket hung open, giving Kurt a clear view of the gun he was carrying. He extracted two boxes, slammed the door shut, and headed toward the clinic.

Kurt hurriedly closed his laptop and shoved it into his bag. He tossed the still half-full coffee cup in the trash on his way out.

He'd parked on the street out front, but he was facing the opposite direction. He drove to the next block, made a U-turn, and pulled into a spot half a block behind the van. He texted the plates to Tasha and asked her to trace them.

Roman came out of the clinic a few minutes later. The scar on his face was clearly visible behind the dark sunglasses he was wearing. He climbed back into the van and pulled out of the spot.

Kurt followed, careful to keep two cars between them.

Roman immediately changed lanes and pulled a hard left turn at the last possible second. Kurt cursed and changed lanes, running a yellow light to make the left turn after the van. He dropped back to put another car between him and Roman. He wasn't sure if Roman was aware that he was being tailed or if he was simply driving evasively in order to prevent anyone from following him. Kurt managed to keep up through two more last-minute turns, but then Roman gunned the van to run a light that had just turned red, trapping Kurt behind the car in front of him that obediently stopped in time.

"Dammit." He smacked the steering wheel in frustration.

Whatever Roman was up to, he was looking less and less like the innocent younger brother Jane had painted him to be.

###

Jane almost skipped in her hurry to get to Kurt's office. He'd called to tell her that he'd found something, so she'd scooted out of the coffee shop that afternoon as fast as her legs could carry her. _I'm so close, Roman, I promise._

"Miss Kruger." Kurt's assistant—Tasha, she remembered—gave her a cool nod without looking up from her computer screen. She was even less welcoming than the first time, and Jane wondered how on earth the business survived with someone like her guarding the door.

The door to Kurt's office was open, and a moment later, he appeared in the doorway. "Jane, come in."

He ushered her into his office and closed the door behind her.

She took the same seat as last time, but this time, Kurt walked around to sit behind his desk.

He didn't beat around the bush. "I saw Roman this morning."

"You did?" Roman was still alive and here in New York. She closed her eyes for a moment at the sudden rush of emotion. "Where? Did you talk to him?"

Kurt turned the laptop on his desk to face her. There, on the screen, was her brother. Older, with the still unfamiliar-to-her beard. But it was _him_.

Jane pressed her hands to her mouth for a moment. When she was sure she could speak without crying, she whispered, "Thank you, Kurt. Thank you so much."

"I didn't talk to him. He didn't seem to want to be talked to."

Something in his tone of voice penetrated through her happy fog. "What do you mean?"

He tapped a button. The next photo showed Roman leaning over. The handle of a handgun was clearly visible in his waistband.

"People carrying guns don't always react well to interruptions. Or surprises."

She frowned, studying the picture for a moment. " _You_ carry a handgun. Do you shoot anyone who stops to talk to you?"

He looked surprised for a moment that she'd noticed, though she didn't know why. _Concealed_ didn't mean _invisible_ if you knew what you were looking for. Which she did.

"I have a license as well as a concealed carry permit," he said stiffly. "We haven't been able to find so much as a legal _driver's license_ for Roman."

"He could have changed his name," she argued, "if he wanted to get away from Shepherd."

"Ah. Shepherd." Kurt leaned back in his chair. "Which is an alias for Ellen Briggs."

She didn't understand the strange tone of his voice. "Yes. Why?"

He reached forward to tap a button on the computer, and an official looking document appeared on the screen. "Because Ellen Briggs is dead."

"She's dead?" She knew that she should feel bad. What kind of person felt happy that someone was dead? But all she could feel was relief. "When?" It must have been recent—

"Twenty-two years ago."

She blinked in confusion, looking from him to the screen in front of her. The year on the death certificate agreed with what he'd said, but it still didn't make any sense. "So, the woman who adopted us wasn't Ellen Briggs? Then who was she?"

"This is the photo that accompanied Ellen Briggs's obituary." He tapped the computer again, and a picture of Shepherd in a military uniform appeared.

"That's her. That's Shepherd." She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"There is no record of an Alice or Ian Kruger being adopted by anyone twenty-one years ago."

"So… she's not legally our mother? That's… that's good news, actually." She couldn't deny that she would be glad to know that she wasn't tied to Shepherd. "But why would she fake her death?"

Kurt regarded her steadily. "Jane, I haven't been able to find out anything that backs up what you've told me. There are no adoption records, no documentation at all of an adult named Ian or Roman Briggs. The only evidence I've found was for the assault case in Philadelphia. The victim of which was found dead two months later."

 _Dead_. A chill went down Jane's spine. "What are you implying? You think Roman _killed_ that man?" He wouldn't have… Would he? The Roman she remembered wouldn't have had the stomach for murder… _But he had the training,_ reminded a little voice in her head.

"I think Roman is mixed up in some bad business. Some _dangerous_ business."

"That doesn't mean he's a killer, though." She rubbed her temple. "What is it that you think he's doing exactly?"

Kurt's forehead drew together in a frown, and for a moment she thought he might not answer. "I think he's selling drugs."

She drew back. "Drugs?" Roman wouldn't sell drugs. "You think he's dealing?" she asked, her voice rising. Certainly Shepherd had dealt with dealers, but she'd viewed them as only a step above users—people who had made their own poor choices in life.

"Illegal medications, most likely opioids."

"Where did you see him? What exactly did you see?" she demanded.

"The business park where you saw him had a pain management clinic. It shut down abruptly right after you saw Roman there. I saw him delivering boxes to a different clinic today."

"Delivering boxes is _not_ the same thing as dealing drugs."

"And delivering band-aids and tongue depressors doesn't usually require carrying a handgun," he fired back.

Jane held on to her temper with effort. Roman was _not_ some drug dealer. Whatever was going on was something different. "I want to know where you saw him. The address, please."

Kurt crossed his arms over his chest. "No."

"No?" Jane drew a deep breath. "I am paying you to find him. You found him. Now give me the address."

"So you can go over there and get yourself tied up in the middle of a drug deal or worse? Absolutely not." He held up his hand before she could blow up. "Let's start over. You tell me who this is," he tapped a key on the laptop until it was back to the picture of Roman, "and why you want to find him."

Jane concentrated on her breathing. In. And out. In. And out. It had been a very long time since she'd lost her temper, and she wasn't going to do it now. "If you thought I wasn't telling you the truth, why did you even take this case?" she asked, keeping her voice low-pitched and steady.

"I knew there were things you weren't telling me, but I obviously underestimated how important those details were to the case," he answered evenly. "So why don't you tell me what I don't know."

He didn't believe her. Had probably never believed her. That knowledge shouldn't hurt her. She'd hired him to do a job, after all, not married him. But still…. He was the first person she'd been this honest with in a long time. She'd told him things that no one who knew her now would ever know about her.

And he hadn't believed a single word of it.

"Why don't you send me the information that you've collected," she said, rising from her chair. "On me _and_ my brother and adoptive mother. Along with your bill for the time you spent on my case. Thank you for your help, Mr. Weller."

She swept out of his office, not bothering to say anything to his assistant as she passed by.

Her anger carried her to the end of the block, and she was halfway down the next one before the first tear fell.


	5. Chapter 5

_I know updates have been slow coming. I got my butt kicked by some horrible germs last month, and I'm still trying to catch up. Thanks to everyone who left lovely reviews to tell me you were enjoying this story & thanks for sticking around through the radio silence! _

* * *

Kurt gave up trying to sleep long before his alarm went off. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was the look of hurt and betrayal on Jane's face.

It wasn't the first time a client had fired him. Usually he just chalked it up to experience, sent them a bill, and moved on. But with Jane…

He couldn't shake the feeling that he had somehow let her down. _You want to believe everything she tells you,_ Tasha's voice echoed in his head. The facts hadn't backed up anything Jane had said. But maybe that was because he didn't have all the facts yet.

 _They need to know that someone is still looking for them._ Jane needed to know that someone—that he—was still looking. If there was one thing that he knew about her to be true, it was that she was stubborn. She'd been looking for Roman for ten years. She wasn't going to stop because some private investigator told her to. And if Kurt didn't help her, she would probably go after Roman herself, with the little bit of information that he'd given her. And probably get herself killed in the process.

He groaned and got out of bed.

The Pour House opened at 5:30 a.m., but Jane was usually there by five. If he hurried, he could talk to her before she opened for the day.

He was still several blocks away when he saw the flashing lights. He was moving at nearly a dead run by the time he reached The Pour House.

"Sir, you can't—" said the fresh-faced cop outside the door, but Kurt didn't even slow.

The door had been kicked in. Inside, the display case for baked goods had been smashed, leaving a dusting of broken glass everywhere, like the cinnamon sugar that coated the apple cider donuts. The chalkboard where Jane wrote the coffee flavor of the day had been defaced.

The cop in his head noted each of these details and then ignored them as he scanned the room for the only thing that mattered.

He found Jane in the far corner, by the counter where customers picked up their coffee orders.

She looked up from the officer she was talking to, and her huge green eyes met his. Only one emotion showed: Fear.

Without hesitation, Kurt closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her. She was warm and soft and _alive._

For a second, he expected her to push him away, but she sagged against him, resting her forehead on his shoulder. "I'm okay," she mumbled into his shirt. "They were gone by the time I got here."

He smoothed his hand up her spine to the back of her neck, tactilely reassuring himself of the truth of her words. "You didn't see anyone?"

"No." And then she straightened up and pushed out of his arms. "I thought I fired you."

He smiled a bit at that. "You did. We'll talk about that later. You need to finish here first." He glanced at the cop, who had politely turned away to give them a moment.

She nodded, scrubbing her hands over her face. Then she straightened her spine, put her game face on, and turned back to the cop.

Damn, she was tough.

He stepped back to let her finish answering the cop's questions.

Looking around, he took in the damage. Besides the broken door and display case, the contents of the counter near the door had been emptied onto the floor. Cup lids, sugar packets, and wooden stirring sticks had been thrown onto the floor and had already been tracked around by the officers on the scene.

He walked over to look behind the main counter where Jane normally stood. Bottles of coffee flavorings had been thrown on the floor, some of which had broken, creating a large, sticky puddle on the floor.

"Well, hello, Private Investigator," said a familiar female voice.

"Allie." He turned around to find his former girlfriend, clad in her crisp blue NYPD uniform, emerging from Jane's office. "How's it going, Officer?"

She came around the counter to give him a hug, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. "How've you been?"

"Busy. You?"

"Crime never stops, right?" She grinned. "What are you doing here?"

He looked over at Jane. "Ah—"

 _"Ohh."_ She drew the syllable out.

"She's a _client,_ " he stressed.

Allie frowned, snapping back into cop mode. "Anything that might be connected to this?"

"I don't think so," he lied. "She was adopted. I'm looking for her long-lost brother."

She nodded. "Good luck with that. Any idea how she ended up a target of gang violence?"

"You think this is gang-related?"

She jerked her chin over her shoulder. "No sign that they tried to break into the safe, but someone took the time to draw a gang symbol on the wall in there."

 _Jesus._ If this _was_ related to her search for Roman, the chance that he _wasn't_ involved with something seriously illegal had just taken a nosedive.

"Was anything else reported in the neighborhood last night?"

Allie shook her head. "Nothing like this."

So whoever had hit Jane's business had targeted it specifically.

Lowering his voice, he said, "Do me a favor? Can you let me know if you find anything?"

She raised one eyebrow. "If you thought this was connected to your case, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?" she asked instead of answering.

"Yeah. I would." _Eventually._

"Then yes."

"Thanks, Allie."

She shot him a smile and nudged him with her elbow as she headed back out into the seating area of the shop. "It's good to see you. You should call me sometime. We can catch up over drinks."

He nodded, but before he could reply, someone called out, "JANIE!" in booming tones.

In the doorway stood a short man with a dark beard. When he found Jane in the crowd of officers, he made a beeline for her, dramatically throwing his arms around her. "Thank God you're all right!"

Kurt watched the display with a frown. Never mind the fact that he had done basically the same thing when he'd come in. Who was this guy and what right did he have to grab Jane so familiarly?

Jane was patting his back awkwardly. "I'm fine, Rich."

He released her and stepped back to grab her by the upper arms. "Why do I pay for an alarm system if it's not going to keep you safe here at the ungodly hour you come in?" Jane opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, he continued, "I fired them. A new security firm is on their way to upgrade the alarm system. They have someone on call 24/7. You will not be endangered again!"

Jane extricated herself from his grasp and crossed her arms. "And how much is that going to cost each month?"

Rich waved his arms. "You would put a price on your safety?!"

When Jane just tilted her head and waited, he crossed his own arms. "If something happens to you, then what happens to _my_ investment in this place?"

"You hire a new manager and keep all the profits for yourself?"

"Cold, Janie. So cold." Rich put his hands over his heart and shook his head sadly.

So this was Jane's business partner. Who would apparently become the sole owner if something happened to Jane. Or if Jane got scared off and quit the coffee business.

Without being aware of it, Kurt found he had traversed the room to stand behind Jane, arms crossed over his chest.

"Helllooooo," said Rich, looking him up and down. "Are you in charge here? Can you explain to me why New York's finest are failing to keep the streets safe for women and small business owners?"

Jane pressed her thumbs to her temples. "Rich, this is Kurt, the investigator I hired to find my brother."

Rich frowned. "You look like a cop. She wouldn't tell me how much she was paying you, but I'm sure it's too much. You are taking advantage of a young woman, sir, sucking away her life's savings. You had better produce some results, instead of just driving around, eating expensive dinners on her dime."

Kurt gritted his teeth and reminded himself that punching her business partner wasn't likely to help him smooth things over with Jane.

"Leave him alone, Rich," said Jane, grabbing Rich's arm and turning him away. "Most of the damage looks worse than it is…"

She didn't say anything about having fired Kurt, which he decided to take as a good sign.

He walked behind the counter to take a look at the office.

Mail from the tray on the desk had been dumped over the floor, and papers had been ripped down from the bulletin board above the desk, but otherwise there was little in the way of visual clutter in the office. It didn't surprise him at all to realize that Jane was almost painfully neat.

As Allie had said, someone had drawn a gang symbol on the wall beside the high-quality wall safe, but the safe itself hadn't been touched. He walked over to examine it more closely. No scratches on the wall around it or damage to the keypad. Whoever had broken in hadn't done so for money. He'd check with Jane, but he would be willing to bet that nothing had been stolen. The filing cabinet beside the desk was still locked and also showed no sign that anyone had tried to break into it.

He turned back to stare at the wall. Was the gang sign taking credit for the break-in? Or was it some sort of a warning for Jane?

Was Roman somehow involved with the gang? Or was it just a coincidence that someone had broken in here the day after Kurt had followed Roman?

The cop in him hated coincidences. In his experience, they were usually a whole lot less coincidental than most people believed.

###

It was nearly six that night, some thirteen hours after she'd arrived, before the coffee shop was—mostly—back in order. The insurance adjusters had come and gone, along with Rich's new security firm, the cleaning crew he'd hired, and people to replace the glass in the front door and the pastry case.

Jane had put her office back together, inventoried the remaining supplies, and put in rush orders to replace the ones she was now out of. She'd be able to open in the morning, thank goodness, although she'd be out of a few coffee flavors until the syrup order arrived.

She was staring at the new security panel, trying to remember how to set the alarm, when someone knocked on the door to the café.

She couldn't help but jump at the noise, even though it was still daylight outside, and no one who was going to kick in her door was going to stop and knock first. She hated feeling so vulnerable. And she hated the people responsible for making her afraid to be alone in her own damn business.

She stalked to the front door—with its shiny new pane of glass—and stopped when she saw who was outside.

On the one hand, she couldn't deny that she'd been relieved to see Kurt when he'd arrived this morning. Somehow his presence had made all the rest of it bearable.

But on the other hand… He didn't trust her. And she'd fired him. Just because the guy had stopped in for a cup of coffee while she'd been quietly falling apart didn't mean that he was suddenly going to believe her story.

She fumbled with her new key and finally got the door unlocked. "Come on in," she said, as graciously as she could, which really wasn't very gracious at all. She was tired, she felt violated and fragile, and she wasn't up for any sort of confrontation.

He studied her, small lines appearing between his brows. "I didn't think you'd still be here."

She sighed. "No reason for anyone else to come in today, when we're closed." She gestured at the sign she'd placed in the window, apologizing for the inconvenience and promising to be open for normal business hours tomorrow.

He nodded, still frowning at her. "Did you eat anything today?"

The question threw her for a loop. Food?

He correctly read the expression on her face. "Get your stuff and lock up. I'll buy you dinner."

She didn't move. "I fired you."

A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. "Then I guess this one is on the house."

She was too tired and—now that she was thinking about it—too hungry to argue with him. She grabbed her knapsack, set the alarm, and then followed him outside so she could lock up.

"Looks like you got everything cleaned up?" he asked as they started to walk.

"Yeah. The damage wasn't too bad. It could have been much worse." Thank goodness they hadn't touched the espresso machine. The damn thing cost as much as a small car.

"New security set up?"

She sighed and scrubbed her face with her hands. "Yeah." She still didn't think the break-in justified the additional monthly expense, but Rich wasn't willing to back down on the issue at all, and she wasn't up to fighting with him today. And even though she knew it would do very little to dissuade someone from breaking in again, she couldn't deny that it made her feel just a tiny bit safer.

"He's pretty concerned with your safety," Kurt observed.

"Rich? He's like that. He's a 'grand gesture' kind of guy."

Kurt shot her a speculative glance but said only, "Thai okay?"

"Thai sounds great."

She let him steer her into the restaurant—one of her favorites—and to a table. She ordered her usual green curry. Kurt eyed her, ordered a curry for himself, several appetizers, and two beers.

Jane was too tired to argue. And frankly, after the day she'd had, the universe owed her a beer.

He waited until their beer had arrived to start asking questions. "Do you have any idea why someone would want to break into your shop?"

She sighed. "As I told your cop friend, no."

"My cop friend?"

"Officer Knight." The pretty cop who'd hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. And told him to call her so they could go out for drinks. None of which bothered Jane in the least. Kurt didn't work for her anymore, they weren't friends, she was just the woman who handed him a cup of coffee in the morning. She hadn't decided if she'd be petty enough to start charging him again, although knowing him, he'd probably just pay anyway before she could even ask.

"Oh, Allie." He didn't even look uncomfortable. "Yeah, we used to date."

"Really?" She sounded just as disinterested as he did. She traced her finger down the condensation on the side of her pint glass. "What happened?"

He shrugged. "She knew I didn't want to get married. Things came to a natural end. We both knew when it was time to move on, no hard feelings."

She had a hard time believing that. The pretty cop had seemed awfully glad to see him. Not that it was any of Jane's business.

"How about you? Any jealous ex-boyfriends who might wish you ill?"

She gave a humorless laugh and took another sip of her beer. "Nope."

He didn't seem satisfied with that answer. "What about the guy who was driving the car when you were in the accident?"

"Oscar? I highly doubt it." He hadn't bothered to stick around long enough to see if she was okay. If he couldn't pick up the phone to ask her if she'd gotten out of the hospital, the idea of him driving across the city to kick in the door to her coffee shop was ludicrous.

"Does Shepherd have any ties to this gang?"

She put down her glass. "Shepherd's dead. That's what you told me."

"And you told me that she's alive. Or was ten years ago, and presumably still is." He met her gaze head-on.

"So, what, you just believe me now? Did you find something that convinced you?"

"I didn't find anything new. But I do believe that you're in danger."

It was the beer on an empty stomach that was making her feel lightheaded, she decided. Not his words. Not at all.

She tried to work up some righteous indignation, but then the waitress set down spring rolls and chicken satay, and Jane's stomach rumbled. Hunger won.

"Shepherd didn't work with any gangs that I knew of," she told him and reached for a chicken skewer.

Kurt stopped the questions so they could eat. But Jane was so hungry that even if he had been firing questions at her, she'd have been too focused on stuffing food into her mouth to reply.

But the silence wasn't uncomfortable, she had to admit. There was something about Kurt that was… reassuring. She was almost sad that she wouldn't have any more excuses to eat with him. And then she thought about that for a moment and decided that being _sad_ that the person she'd _fired_ wouldn't eat dinner with her any more might be a new all-time low in her social life.

True to his word, Kurt did grab the check when it appeared. And waved away her attempt to pay for her half.

Right. If he was being a grown-up about this, so could she.

She wiped her mouth with her napkin and set it carefully next to her now-empty bowl. "You might be right. About Roman. It's been ten years. And… I'm sure a lot has changed." She didn't want to—couldn't—bring herself to believe that he was dealing drugs though.

"Are you still determined to find him?"

"He's my brother." What other answer could she give?

But Kurt didn't look skeptical or judgmental. He just nodded, as though he'd expected her to say that. "I'm still willing to help you."

"What's the catch?" If he didn't believe everything she was telling him, why would he still be willing to find Roman? His fee wasn't cheap, but it wasn't going to set him up for life, either. Why waste time with a client he thought was lying to him?

"You don't look for him without me." His blue eyes were steady on hers.

She didn't think Roman would hurt her, but if there was a chance that he might still be in contact with Shepherd? Having someone else in her corner probably wasn't a bad idea.

"Sounds like a deal I can't refuse."


	6. Chapter 6

This time, Jane didn't argue when Kurt offered to walk her home. The combination of beer and Thai food—on top of a rather harrowing day—had left her feeling too worn out to argue with anyone, even him.

Not that he was being particularly argumentative at the moment. He was quiet and thoughtful as he walked along beside her.

She had told him what little she knew about Shepherd's life before Jane and Roman had come to live with her: That she'd been in the Army, that she'd had ovarian cancer and received a medical discharge. That she'd adopted two children after having her ovaries removed in the course of her cancer treatment. That she'd been bitter about having her military career cut short after so many years of service.

Jane was slowly coming to the realization that she was going to have to tell Kurt all of it. But doing so would put him in danger, and risking him to help herself seemed… selfish. At best.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as they walked. He didn't touch her, but he stayed close enough to make it clear that he was with her, that she wasn't alone.

After the day she'd had, she could admit that it felt nice to know that someone cared enough to look out for her. She'd been on her own for so long that she'd forgotten what it was like _not_ to be alone.

"This is me," she said, stopping in front of the door to her building. And then she realized that the door was ajar, instead of locked as the building supervisor demanded. It hadn't been kicked in, she told herself, pressing gingerly against the panel, swinging it open the rest of the way.

The small entry hallway with the row of mailboxes was empty, and she drew a deep breath.

"I'm walking you up," Kurt informed her.

She wasn't about to argue with him.

Her apartment was on the third floor. They rounded the second floor landing and started up the steps to the third floor. She was three steps from the top when someone rounded the corner and slammed into her.

Her hand shot out to grab the railing by pure reflex as someone else crashed into Kurt.

She was so busy looking back to make sure Kurt was okay that it took her a second to realize that her assailant was trying to lift her over the railing. And then adrenaline and reflexes took over.

She locked her arm around her attacker and walked her feet up the balusters, forcing him away from the edge and into the wall on the opposite side of the step. He tried to wrap his arm around her neck, but she brought her elbow up and cracked him in the chin, jerking his head backwards. He loosened his grip, and she took advantage of the slack to twist around and slam her fist into his nose. A spurt of blood was followed by his bellow of rage.

She was dimly aware of Kurt wrestling with his own opponent, of grunts and the sound of fist meeting flesh. But she couldn't look as her attacker launched himself at her again. She had the advantage of being higher on the stairs, and she responded by sheer instinct, shooting her foot out in a high kick that caught him just below the collarbone.

He wheeled back, arms spinning as he reached out for something to steady himself. Finding nothing to grasp, he teetered on the edge of the step before falling backwards into the second man, who was staggering backwards from the punch Kurt had landed, and sending both of them tumbling down the stairs as Kurt lunged forward, up the stairs toward her.

"Are you okay?" He grabbed her upper arm, looking at her face.

There was a cut above his right eye, and the side of his face was already red, a harbinger of a vicious bruise to come. But he seemed otherwise uninjured.

She looked past him to the men at the bottom of the stairs. "Fuck it, let's get out of here," one of them muttered as they staggered to their feet and took off.

She had a momentary panic that Kurt would chase after them, but he didn't let go of her arm, and after a second, she relaxed her grip on the baluster.

"Are you okay?" he asked again, releasing her arm so he could run his hand up to her shoulder. He leaned in closer to look at her face. "You're bleeding."

"So are you," she whispered, suddenly conscious that their faces were only inches apart.

"Come on." He rose up and held out a hand to her.

She took his hand and let him pull her up. He didn't let go when she was standing, probably because she had his hand in a death grip that she wasn't sure she could release.

They climbed the remaining few steps to the third floor.

The third door on the left, her apartment, was slightly ajar, and Jane moved toward it with dread, already knowing what she was going to find on the other side of it.

"Stay here," Kurt said sternly, extricating his hand from hers and pulling out the handgun he hadn't had time to reach for earlier.

She nodded, not in any hurry to see what they'd done to her place.

Kurt shoved the door open, gun drawn, and entered her apartment.

Jane leaned against the wall by the doorway. She was still breathing heavily from the fight on the stairs. She ran the back of her hand across her suddenly clammy forehead, then frowned at the blood smeared across her knuckles. She didn't really remember getting hit, but judging by the pain in her head, he'd gotten her somewhere near the hairline on the left side.

Kurt reappeared a moment later. "All clear. Can I use your phone?"

She reached in her pocket, surprised to find that her phone was still there and undamaged. She unlocked it and handed it over without question.

"Go pack what you need for tonight. You aren't staying here."

She nodded automatically and stepped through her front door.

As she'd expected, her apartment looked much the same as the coffee shop had that morning. The cabinet doors in her tiny kitchen had been opened, plates and mugs smashed on the floor. Her little dining table had been upended, as had the sofa, each cushion slashed open. The pictures she'd hung on the walls had been knocked down, most of them broken. She bent down to pick up one of them—one of the few pictures she had of her and Roman together, when she'd been 14 and he 12—and carefully shook the broken glass from the frame. The picture didn't appear damaged, so she set it on the counter in the kitchen.

The same strange symbols—gang markings, according to Officer Knight—had been scribbled on her denuded living room wall.

A few more steps carried her to the door of her bedroom. Dresser drawers had been pulled out, the contents dumped on the floor. Like the sofa cushions, the pillows on the bed had been gutted, feathers spilling out on the comforter.

As she looked at the destruction, shock began to give way to anger. _Goddammit._ This was her home, her _life,_ that these bastards had felt no remorse in trashing. She kicked clothes out of the way as she strode to the bedside table.

Her sketchbook was still in its place in the drawer. They must have run out of steam before they'd gotten that far. She grabbed the pencil beside it and dropped down on the bed, ignoring the cloud of feathers that rose around her. She flipped to a blank page and began to sketch with broad, angry strokes.

She could hear Kurt's voice as he moved around in her living room, but she tuned him out, her entire focus narrowed to the work in front of her.

She had no idea how much time had passed before she was satisfied with the drawing. She carefully wrote her name, the date, and her cell phone number in the lower right corner.

"Jane?"

She looked up to find him standing in the doorway to her bedroom. She ripped the page out of the sketchbook and stood up to hand it to him. "These are the two guys who attacked us."

He looked down at the paper in his hand, blinking in surprise. "Wow. That's… them."

When he glanced back at her, she lifted her chin. "You said I'd make a good police sketch artist."

He gave a small smile. "I did. And you do. Good work."

She exhaled. It was a small first step, but it felt good to do something that she had control over.

"I talked to Rich. He's sending his security team over to fix your lock." He handed her phone back to her. "And I talked to Allie—Officer Knight. She's sending officers over to look at the place tonight, but I told her she could get a statement from you tomorrow at the coffee shop."

"They don't want to talk me to tonight?"

"Of course they do, but I told her they couldn't." He smiled grimly at her. "The sketch will appease them. You've been through enough today."

Part of her wanted to protest him taking over. But another—louder—part of her was relieved. She was tired of being an adult. She wanted someone else to take charge for a little while so she could curl up and pretend none of this was happening to her.

"Pack up some things," he said gently. "We'll leave as soon as Rich's security guys get here."

She got things from the drawers that hadn't been opened, avoiding the clothes that had been dumped on the floor. She didn't want to touch anything that they'd touched. She'd wash everything before she wore any of it again.

In the bathroom, her cosmetics had been dumped on the floor. She avoided the mess, grabbing only the untouched shampoo and body wash from the shower, and the deodorant and toothbrush from inside the medicine cabinet.

She shoved it all in her knapsack, followed by her sketchbook, and went back to kitchen. She picked up the picture in the broken frame and added it to the top of the bag.

Kurt was waiting in the living room.

"They didn't take my TV or my laptop," she said out loud, as she surveyed the room again.

"No," Kurt said quietly.

She turned to face him. "So just like the coffee shop, they weren't here to rob me."

"No, they weren't."

"They just wanted to frighten me. And make me stop looking for Roman."

"Maybe." He looked less certain on that last point, but she knew. She should have learned her lesson last time. But she'd stupidly thought that if it was someone _else_ who was looking, not her, things would be different.

She'd been wrong.

###

It wasn't until she was standing in front of the door to Kurt's apartment that she realized she hadn't asked him where they were going.

He unlocked the door and guided her inside, his hand on the small of her back. "How are you doing?"

She shook her head. _Angry. Scared. Tired._ She was all of the emotions, all at once.

"You want a stiff drink? A hot shower?"

She'd already had beer earlier. It seemed like it had been days since they'd eaten dinner, rather than a couple of hours. She didn't usually drink if she was getting up for work in the morning. 4am was early enough without adding a hangover into the mix. But as tired as she was, she also felt like she would never be able to sleep again.

"Both?"

He steered her to the sofa and went back to the kitchen, returned with two glasses and a bottle of Scotch. "You want ice?"

She shook her head, accepting the glass he passed her.

They sipped in silence for a moment. The alcohol burned its way down her throat to the block of ice that seemed to have taken up residence in her stomach.

His apartment was nice, she realized, looking around. It was bigger than hers, with patio doors that opened onto a balcony. In the distance she could see the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge. And it was… surprisingly cozy.

"So… you gonna tell me where you learned all those fancy fighting moves you used earlier?" Kurt asked, glancing over at her.

His question was more offhand than interrogative, and instead of dodging, she leaned back against his comfortable sofa and answered, "Homeschool."

He blinked at her over the rim of his glass.

She shrugged. "Shepherd brought in tutors to make sure we covered the basics: Reading, writing, science, the history of American military conflicts. And firearms and pretty much every martial art and school of hand-to-hand combat."

He had lowered his glass and now just regarded her across the few feet that separated them on the sofa.

"After a while, the academic classes stopped, and we just trained. All day. Every day."

"For what?" His voice was gravelly, as though he didn't really want to ask.

She didn't blame him. She didn't really want to know, either. "To fight. In underground fighting rings." She laughed humorlessly. "The odds were always pretty long on a skinny girl."

"You won?"

She nodded and took another sip from her nearly-empty glass. "The payout is highest if you kill your opponent." She leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling, not wanting to see the expression on his face. "I didn't. Kill anyone. But she wanted me to. That's why I ran. I kept the fights as close as I could. She didn't like that."

" _You_ could have been killed," he said, some unidentifiable emotion coursing in his eyes.

She shook her head. "I couldn't. I had to look out for Roman. I couldn't leave him alone with her. But that's what I ended up doing." She shut her eyes. She'd failed him, and now he was doing god knows what.

Kurt reached over and touched her arm. "We'll find him."

"You should have just let me fire you," she said tiredly. He'd been attacked as well tonight. And now he was hosting her, which would definitely make him a target if he wasn't already.

"Nah." He shrugged, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Most interesting case I've had in a while."

She tried to smile back, but she couldn't. Her life was a mess, and now she'd dragged him into it.

And even worse, now he knew exactly how messed up she was.

"Can I use your shower?" she asked abruptly, downing the last of her scotch and leaning forward to place her glass on the coffee table.

"Sure." He stood up immediately, leaving his not-quite-empty glass on the table. "This way."

She shouldered her knapsack and followed him through a doorway, stopping abruptly when she realized she was standing in his bedroom.

"Through here." He crossed to another door on the far side of the room. He turned on the light and fished a set of towels out of a small linen closet, setting them on the sink. Returning to the bedroom, he told her, "I'll put clean sheets on the bed while you're showering."

"No, I—I don't want to kick you out of your bed." She shifted awkwardly, still in the bedroom doorway.

"It's fine. I have a perfectly comfortable sofa bed."

She opened her mouth to argue, but he leveled a no-nonsense look at her as he started pulling the sheets off the bed. "Go shower, Jane."

The intimacy of standing in his bedroom with him was too much, and she fled into the bathroom.

The tiny room smelled like him. Aftershave, probably. She closed her eyes for a minute, breathing deeply, unwilling to admit how calming she found it. How comforting Kurt's presence was.

She shouldn't be here.

But it wasn't as though she had anywhere else to go.

She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. She'd spent the day cleaning up the mess in her business—she blocked the thought that she'd now have to do the same in her home—and she'd felt sweaty and gross by the time she was done. The hot water pouring over her body felt soothing and relaxing. She turned her face into the spray, hissing as it stung the cut on her face.

She'd have bruises in the morning, she was sure. Not that they would show under the tattoos.

Finally, a useful purpose for the damn things.

She washed without really looking at the marks on her skin, a technique she'd perfected over the past eighteen months. And then she just stood under the shower, wishing the water could wash away not only the tattoos, but the memory of today and the can of worms she'd opened up as well.

With a sigh, she shut off the water and reached for a towel.

She brushed her teeth and dressed quickly in the tank top and shorts she'd stuffed into her knapsack. She shoved her dirty clothes and toiletries back into the bag, and cautiously opened the door.

Kurt was gone, the bedroom door closed. The bedside lamp was the only light on in the room. The bed had been neatly made, as promised. The corner had been turned down invitingly, and the thoughtfulness of that small gesture made tears well up in her eyes.

How long had it been since anyone had gone out of their way to do something nice for her? And after she'd gotten him attacked?

He probably would have liked to take a hot shower, too, she realized belatedly. Or to at least wash out the cut on his face. But he'd given her the use of his bathroom and bedroom and left to sleep on his sofa bed.

She set her knapsack down on the floor beside the dresser. Before her courage deserted her, she grasped the doorknob and opened the door.

The apartment outside the door was dark, and she hesitated for a moment, her eyes adjusting to the dim light, before padding quietly into the living room.

There was a rustling noise as Kurt sat up from where he had stretched out on the sofa. He hadn't opened up the sofa bed, she noticed, just thrown a pillow at one end of the sofa and a still-folded blanket at the other.

"Jane. Are you okay?"

She nodded and then realized he probably couldn't see her in the darkness. "I'm fine. I thought—I'm done in the bathroom, if you want to use it."

"Oh. Yeah, thanks." He stood up.

In the darkness, she could make out only the shape of his white undershirt. She stepped to the side, to allow him to pass by her and head into the bedroom. A moment later, she heard the door to the bathroom close.

She went into his kitchen and found a glass, filling it from the tap and taking a big gulp of the tepid water. She should have thought to ask him for an ibuprofen. Should have suggested that he take one, too, as he would no doubt be as bruised as she was by morning.

She set the empty glass in the sink and walked slowly back toward the bathroom, wanting to give him as much privacy as she could, given that she'd invaded his home and driven him from his own bed.

He was just coming out of the bathroom as she entered the bedroom, and they looked at each other awkwardly in the light of the bedside lamp.

He was only wearing a pair of boxers with his undershirt, and even though she knew she should look away, she couldn't help but let her gaze sweep from the strong set of his shoulders down to his muscular legs.

Damn, but he was a good-looking man.

And then she realized that he was staring at her legs. Or rather, at the ink that was visible from beneath the hem of her shorts all the way down to the tops of her feet.

Since she'd woken up with the tattoos, she'd found that men had one of two reactions to them: They either assumed that they meant she was wild in the sack and open to invitations, or else they were completely turned off by them.

She realized then how desperately she'd hoped that Kurt wouldn't fall into the second category, but judging by the wide-eyed look on his face, she'd been wrong. Again.

"Sorry," she whispered, feeling horribly exposed. She stared down at the floor, avoiding both his eyes and the sight of her own bare legs. "I know they're a bit… much."

She drew back, away from him, away from the doorway to the bedroom so he could leave.

He moved then, but toward her instead of the door. He reached out his hand and grasped her arm just above her wrist. "Jane." His voice was a rough whisper. And then he stopped, but he didn't let go.

A moment passed, and she risked a look up at his face.

He was staring at her, but it wasn't with disgust or repulsion. "Your tattoos," he said, very slowly and deliberately, "are part of you. And you… you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."


	7. Chapter 7

She met his eyes then, to discern the sincerity of his words. And in them, saw only truth… and potent raw desire.

She moved toward him without thinking, as though she were a magnet and he was her True North, raising up on her tiptoes to press her lips to his.

He didn't kiss her back. No, he _devoured_ her. His mouth opened on hers, and she met him eagerly, her tongue tangling with his. He tasted hot and dark and sinful. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer… and it still wasn't close enough.

His large hands pressed against her spine, burning through her thin shirt and molding her body to his. He backed her into the wall, pinning her body full-length to his, and she lifted one leg to hook around his hips, drawing him against her exactly where she needed him. She heard a low moan and realized distantly that it had come from her.

And then suddenly, he tore his mouth from hers, still close enough for her to feel the gust from his ragged breathing against her lips. Blue eyes, wide with desire, stared into hers, and he blinked, sanity returning to his eyes.

"God, I'm sorry, Jane." His voice was rough, as though she'd awakened him from a deep sleep. "I didn't—I didn't bring you here for—I'm sorry." He loosened his grip on her, but she refused to let him go.

"I'm not sorry." And she wasn't. It had been so damn long since she'd felt wanted. _Needed._ And she knew him well enough by now to know that he would never take advantage of anyone in his care.

But she wanted him to. She wanted to take advantage of _him_.

He swallowed, still breathing hard, and she could see the struggle raging inside of him as he tried—and failed—to let go of her.

She tilted her head back, just far enough to look him directly in the eye as she spoke. "It's been a shitty day, Kurt. And it would be really nice to feel _good_ for a little while."

She could see the moment that her words sank in. His pupils dilated, and his hands tightened on her. "Are you sure?"

Instead of speaking, she pulled his mouth down to hers, biting his lower lip until his mouth opened against hers again.

His body got the message more quickly than his brain. She shifted, tightened her leg around his hip to hold him where she wanted him, and his hands came down to grip her hips, lifting her slightly to fit perfectly against him.

She wrapped both legs around him then. The thin layers they wore were practically no barrier at all, and she twisted against him, needing the friction of his body against hers, swallowing his guttural groan.

He shoved away from the wall, turning to carry her the few steps to the bed. He dropped one knee to the mattress to set her down gently, but held back when she tried to pull him down with her.

"So you want to feel good? I think I can help you with that," he told her, the gleam in his eye lit with playful intent.

"You think?" she retorted, but her words came out breathlessly, instead of the sassy tone she'd intended.

"Mmmm-hmmm." He slipped both hands under her shirt, resting them gently on the soft skin of her belly, and she couldn't help the way her stomach muscles clenched in response.

Since when was her _stomach_ an erogenous zone?

He stroked her stomach and her sides, edging higher under her tank, pale eyes watching her as she moved restlessly beneath his touch.

But instead of moving his hands higher, where she wanted them, he moved them back down to catch the hem of her shirt, easing the fabric up, and ducked his head to place a hot, open-mouthed kiss just above her bellybutton. His lips moved, tracing a burning path across her stomach, along the lower edge of her ribs then down to taste the shadow of her bellybutton.

And then she realized he was tracing her tattoos. Far from pretending they weren't there, he was tracing each one slowly, making a soft hum of approval deep in his throat as he did.

She'd asked for mindless sex, and she was totally unprepared for the surge of emotion that coursed through her. She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened and fisted her hand in his shirt, pulling him back up to her so she could fuse her mouth to his.

But he wasn't done. When they finally separated just far enough to gasp for air, his mouth moved along the line of her jaw and down her throat to the tattoo on her neck, tracing it with lips and tongue and teeth until she moaned. And then he ducked his head and shoved her shirt up far enough that he could finally— _finally_ —drag his lips across her breast, chuckling as she arched up against him. He closed his mouth around her nipple, teasing it with his tongue, and then pressed hot kisses across her chest to do the same to the other.

She ran her fingers through his short hair, cradling his head against her, and gave up trying to stifle her breathless moans.

And then his mouth moved down, unhurriedly, taking time to drag his tongue into her bellybutton again, as his hands hooked into the waistband of her shorts, tugging them down with excruciating slowness as he explored each newly exposed bit of skin with his mouth. The sharp point of her hipbone, the soft hollow below it where her hip met her thigh.

She tried to tug him toward her again, but he rested his hand gently against her stomach, splayed fingers stroking her skin. "Shhh," he whispered, as he trailed his mouth along the tattoo on her right thigh, slipping her shorts the rest of the way down her legs. "I'm supposed to be making you feel good."

She tried to argue that she would feel good if he would kiss her again, but then his mouth moved to the shadowed crease between her legs and her ability for speech deserted her completely.

His mouth was hot and lazy, exploring her as though she were a gourmet dish he wished to savor.

She tried to tilt her head up to watch him, but it was all too much, and she shut her eyes and dropped her head back onto the bed.

It felt _so damn good_.

Her orgasm caught her by surprise, crashing over her with the suddenness of a summer storm. Her back arched up off the bed, but he didn't let go, gripping her trembling thighs with gentle hands, wringing every drop of pleasure out of her. And when she'd collapsed boneless down on the bed again, his fingers joined his mouth, and the whole storm began again.

She grabbed his shoulder, not entirely sure if it was to stop him or to keep him in place, and then proceeded to lose her mind as a pleasure so intense swept through her that she could do nothing except shudder from the tremors that shook her entire body.

By the time she finally regained some sense of control, he had stretched out beside her on the bed, his head propped up on one hand while the other traced lazy patterns on her abdomen.

"So did that feel good?" he asked, a smile playing on his lips.

"Christ, yes," she groaned, looping one arm behind his neck to draw him down for a kiss.

God, she loved the way he kissed, slow and deep and thorough, as though he had nothing else to do in life but kiss her.

Her hand slipped to his shoulder, and she realized he was still clothed. "Off," she muttered against his lips.

He pulled back just far enough to oblige her, whipping his shirt off, and then tugging off her tank top, which she'd forgotten about entirely.

He went back to kissing her, as she brushed her hands across his shoulders, feeling the strength in the arms that held her so gently, the tickle of his chest hair against the pads of her fingertips.

She stroked her hand down his side, feeling him flinch as she brushed over a ticklish spot. So she did it again, smiling against his lips.

He grabbed for her hand, but she evaded him, stroking her hand over his hip and around to the front of his boxers. The fabric was tented out, the waistband straining to contain the force of his desire for her. She pushed the fabric down, and he raised his hips so she could push the offending fabric away and take him into her hand.

He groaned, deep in his throat, unable to control his response as his hips thrust against her hand. She tightened her fingers around him, stroking down firmly from tip to base, delighting in the noises he couldn't quite stifle. She repeated the gesture, and he pulled his mouth away from hers to growl, "I'm not gonna last long if you keep that up."

Which was an invitation if she'd ever heard one. In a heartbeat, she'd flipped him over onto his back, laughing at his look of surprise and leaning down to kiss him as she straddled his thighs. "Do you have—"

"Oh. Damn. Yes." He flung out an arm toward the nightstand, so she leaned over to open the drawer. She'd expected that he was the kind of guy who was careful about things like this, and it filled her with a heady sense of power to know that she could make someone so disciplined forget to be practical and in control for a moment.

She found the box of condoms—unopened, she noted with an odd sense of satisfaction—and extracted one. She resumed her position above his thighs as she ripped the wrapper open and reached down to roll it into place.

He let her do everything, eyes open and watching her every move, hands resting lightly on her hips.

She raised herself up over him and guided him inside, sinking down slowly as her body adjusted. His hands tightened on her hips, but he didn't try to rush her, staying still until they were joined as deeply as possible, only his deep groan betraying the cost of his restraint.

She closed her eyes, savoring the feel of him inside of her, then moved slowly, learning the feel of his body and the way they fit together.

He let her control the pace, though he surged up to meet her and his hands were everywhere, caressing her shoulders, teasing her nipples, and finally, stroking her body where they joined.

She didn't even recognize the noises that came from her throat. She had thought her body too sated to reach that pinnacle again, but the movement of his hands and hips against her were proving her wrong. She threw her head back in a silent scream, her whole body clenching down on his.

He grabbed her hips then, arching up and into her as he followed her over the precipice with a loud, guttural shout.

She collapsed onto his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and gathered her close.

For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of ragged breathing, slowing and softening. And then he asked, his voice deep and rumbly, "So… did that improve your day any?"

She chuckled and kissed his collarbone. "Mmm hmm."

"Good."

She was too sated to grumble at the smug tone of his voice.

He nudged her gently and shifted her to the side so he could get up and dispose of the condom.

She stretched, too boneless and comfortable to do more than snuggle her face into the pillow as she lay sprawled on her stomach. The sheets smelled like Kurt, and she could have happily stayed there forever. She supposed she should have been worried about the wisdom of falling into bed with him, but she wasn't. She knew him. She trusted him. And it wasn't as though he had any expectations of _her_.

She ignored the tiny voice deep inside that wished that maybe he did.

Kurt came back out of the bathroom and dropped down on the edge of the bed. "Are you one of those people who hogs all the pillows?"

She scrunched up her nose at him. "Not my fault your bed is so comfortable." But she obligingly slid over a bit.

He didn't move. "Jane." There was something odd in the tone of his voice.

She lifted her chin to look up at him. "What?"

He was looking at her back. He reached out to put his palm flat on the skin to the right of her spine, holding her still. "You have a gang symbol tattooed on your back."

Jane lay completely still for a moment as Kurt's words sank in. She turned her head, trying futilely to see what he was looking at.

"Here." He traced a pattern she couldn't see.

She sat up and reached for the cell phone in the pocket of her knapsack. She unlocked it and tapped on the camera app, handing it silently to Kurt.

He understood what she was asking. He snapped a picture of the tattoo and passed the phone back to her.

And then she understood why the gang symbol scrawled on the walls of her office and her living room had seemed familiar to her. The pattern on her lower back had the same outline but was flipped upside down. And instead of solid lines, it was drawn in a collection of letters, numbers, and symbols that made no sense to her.

She'd spent a lot of time sketching her tattoos, trying to figure out why they'd been etched in her skin and what they meant. But this one was harder to see, so she hadn't studied it as closely as she had some of the others.

She swallowed, clutching the phone tighter.

"You really don't know what they mean, do you?"

She shook her head.

"You want to tell me where they came from?" he asked her. His voice was gentle, but it still felt like an accusation, as though she were somehow responsible for the damage to her café and her home.

She turned away, feeling suddenly exposed, searching for her shirt and shorts.

He didn't say anything as she dressed. He made no move for his own clothes, either. He just sat and waited patiently.

Dressed again, she sat back down on the bed.

"When I saw Roman, at the office park eighteen months ago." She stared down at her hands instead of looking at him. "I called Oscar, my boyfriend, to tell him that I'd finally found Roman. He told me to wait there, and he'd pick me up. I remember him arriving and getting into his truck, but that's the last thing I remember clearly. The next thing I was aware of was waking up and seeing these." She held out her hands, palms down, staring at the dark lines that traced her skin. "I didn't have any tattoos… before." She thought of her life that way now; as _before_ and _after_. "I was in some sort of rehab facility. They told me I'd been in an accident and had been in a coma for six weeks. But I didn't have any injuries. No cuts or scrapes, no broken bones. Nothing. Just… six missing weeks and a lot of tattoos."

She fell silent then. Just thinking the words in her head sounded… impossible. But out loud? Kurt hadn't believed her when she'd told him the truth about things far more believable than this.

"Was there a police report for the accident?" His voice was soft, as though he was dealing with someone who wasn't quite… stable.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "No. They said I was transferred there from a hospital, but there were no records. I never got any medical bills."

"What happened to Oscar?"

"He left me a voicemail. Said he was so sorry about the accident, that it was all his fault. He claimed he felt too guilty when he looked at me, so he 'needed some time.' I haven't heard from him since. I called him, but his number was disconnected."

"Who do you think did this to you, Jane?" When she didn't answer, he asked, "Do you think it was Shepherd?"

She nodded. "I thought it was a warning. To stop looking for Roman."

"Good thing you aren't a quitter then," he said lightly.

That startled her enough to turn to look at him. The expression on his face was thoughtful. "Did you report anything to the cops after your accident?"

"No." She'd wanted to pretend it had never happened.

"So they trashed your business and your house, making sure that symbol appeared in both places. Both times the cops were called and the incident logged. Someone wants attention."

"Shepherd wouldn't want the cops looking for her," she said quickly.

"No, but if she wanted the cops to have this information, tattooing it on you would have been a good way to get their attention right away."

She thought about that for a minute. "But what information? I don't know what any of them mean."

"I don't know either, but I know someone who might be able to help us. I'll call her in the morning."

Help _us_.

Whatever she had expected his response to be, it wasn't this. She stared at him uncertainly.

"So… you believe me? About all of this?"

"Yes. I do." The complete lack of hesitation in his response was almost more comforting than the words themselves.

He glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. "You need to get some sleep."

Her gaze followed his, and she winced. Four a.m. was a lot closer than she wanted it to be.

When she didn't move, he frowned. "Do you want me to sleep on sofa?"

"No," she replied quickly. At this point, more honesty probably wasn't likely to scare him off. "It's just that… I have nightmares sometimes. They can be a little disturbing." Oscar had hated being awakened by her thrashing, and they'd gotten even worse after she'd woken up with the tattoos.

He regarded her somberly. "I do too sometimes. I'm willing to risk it if you are."

He believed her wild story. He still wanted to help her. He was willing to put up with her nightmares. Not to mention, he'd given her the best sex of her entire life.

She set her phone down on the nightstand so that she'd hear the alarm, then slid into the bed beside him.

He leaned across her to shut off the light, then curved his arm around her to pull her close.

And there in the dark, she could allow herself to give in to the temptation he presented. She turned her face into the curve of his shoulder and allowed herself to relax. She'd had one of the worst days of her life. And yet—curled up next to Kurt, snuggled in the sheets that smelled like him—she felt more safe and secure than she had in years. Maybe ever.


End file.
